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Wednesday, March 12, 2014

I recently started some blinds about celebrities and their charities and it is because of charities like the one founded by Lady GaGa. Showbiz 411 has all the documents from her charity from the year 2012 and they show that it is basically a money making scheme for GaGa's associates. Despite raising $2.6M in 2012 they only gave away $5000 to charity. $1.5M was spent on publicity and lawyers and consultants. Yeah, there are lots of people making a whole lot of money but none of the people that the charity was intended to help. Who is it supposed to help anyway? At least if you are going to do this kind of thing try and give some kind of respectable amount to charity or a cause. $5000 is more then she spends on dinner or one outfit and she could only give that much despite the $2.6M raised? Thanks Mark.

I know a celeb that hires her friends to run her charities events. Most of the money goes towards the company they set up. She once said "It doesn't matter where the money goes as long as people feel good about donating it."

Some celebs have legit charities that give more money to the cause than expenses just like there are charities out there run by organizations that may spend more on administration than you think is right. Bottomline is do your research before you give and decide who is worthy of your money. All these charities are supposed to have publicly available financial statements and you can bet the IRS will be very interested in Gaga's "charity".

@Humble, sometimes it's the friends running the 'charity', sometimes its a convenient place to park unemployed family members. Wasn't it Brian Spears - the fully clothed brother of Britney and Jamie Lynn - who had that gig for quite some time, running the Spears foundation?

There should be some type of fraud law against charity scammers. As mentioned above, not only does it hurt the charity in question, but it prohibits people from participating in legit charities for fear of it being abused. Wonder if someone whom the charity could have help could sue?

Bono has been doing this shit for years too. He got called in it a while back and his answer was that all the money donated to his charity was used for 'raising awareness of need'. None of the money actually helps those in need, just so we all know that people need it.I suppose he needs donations to fund his pontificating around the world.

What Enty has left out, is that Gaga's mother is the president of the fund (which probably why it's been mismanaged) and most of the money in the charity fund comes from Gaga herself, not the people, so no people who have dontated, are not getting screwed.

In Canada, registered charities are strictly regulated - there is a minimum amount of money you have to give out to charity every year, but not all because for example in the case of a foundation, you are trying to only spend the income not the principal so that the foundation will grow and have more money to give out as time goes on unless you want to set it up differently. As long as you meet those minimum requirements. The problem is that you have people who set up fake charities with fake registration numbers though it is easy to verify if a registration number is legit and even in the case of a legit charity you can end up hiring a crook but they will get caught, so long as they haven't skipped the country already.

There have been complaints about some legit charities here spending too much money - a few of then have big annual lotteries where the prizes are big fully decorated and furnished houses and fancy cars and trips, but people assumed they were being donated to the charity but they aren't, the charity is paying for all these expensive prizes, maybe at cost vs retail but still, to entice people to buy the tickets but then the feeling is not that much actual money is going to medical research. One magazine columnist said just donate the same amount of money directly the hospital rather than buy a ticket to this lottery.

@TIna, I agree about giving directly. I'm never a fan of items purchased with 'a percentage going to charity' either. Just give to established organizations with a track record of helping a cause or people in need.

I also think it's better when celebrities align themselves with an existing organization - for example, Denzel Washington and Boys & Girls Clubs - instead of setting up something new with all the accompanying overhead.

It will be interesting to see how the Gaga case develops, however. Even if it was her own money, I'm sure she got a tax writeoff for it. One good jail sentence for a well-known celebrity would have a major impact on what others are willing to risk in fake schemes.

Disgusting. Seeing as it's Lady Gaga, some of the money donated probably comes from teens who don't have that much themselves. Thank God most people know a couple of honest lawyers, but this is why people generally despise them.

I blame accountants. Charities are viewed as a do-gooder tax break, but they're a seriously difficult business to run. If a celebrity doesn't have the time to truly run the charity, this sort of shit happens, even at established charities.

These gifs are totally spot-on about non-profit work: http://workingatanonprofit.tumblr.com/

Hubby & I wanted to sponsor a child so we did research. We ended up choosing World Vision (even though I'm an atheist) because they pool the children & the resources. We sponsor a girl in Tanzania, other children in her same village are sponsored. The resources are pooled so all the village is helped. They improve their sanitary facilities, introduce clean water, teach them how to farm. The idea is to make the village self-sufficient. We have been sponsoring for almost 10 years. Our sponsor child is turning 15 this year, is still in school & wants to be a nurse. It really brought home to me the impact we have had on her. Normally girls are pulled out of school to learn to be wives & married off when they get their periods. You sponsor until the child is around 18/19, or the village becomes self-sufficient before hand.

Gaga is a grifter, steals her sucessful music style from someone who died, steals her looks from everyone, steals her ideas, steals from her charity. It's about time people know what a really terrible person Gaga is. Her Karmic backlash is going to be epic and very well deserved.

Nutty_Flavor said: "I'm never a fan of items purchased with 'a percentage going to charity' either."

Glad to see you mentioned this! That's maybe not a scam but a dirty little trick corporations sometimes play. They'll sell their Widgets for $10, but then make a charity version for $12, saying "we're donating to this charity if you buy this." Great... except for then they only give $1 per Widget, essentially making a dollar more on the backs of need.

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